英语书籍：Listening Is An Act Of Love（三）

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Nonfiction: Listening Is An Act Of Love
A Celebration of American Life
from the StoryCorps Project
Author: Dave Isay, Editor
Publisher: The Penguin Press
a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
ISBN: 9781594201400
LISTENING (Part 3 of 5)
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DR. RICHARD COLLINS, 81, interviewed by his grandson
SEAN COLLINS, 26
RECORDED IN NEW YORK CITY

Richard Collins: I was born in Avon, New York, in 1924, one of
twelve children. My father was a country doctor, and it was my
father's job when he made calls to take three or four of us in the
car with him, to get us out of my mother's hair. When we would
arrive at a house to make a call, we were forbidden to leave the
car, and we were forbidden to blow the horn unless one of us was
dying. So we were pretty constrained.

One time I was in the car with my brother Chuck, and my father was
delivering a baby. And the time wore on. We were getting pretty
bored, so we started exploring his pill case. We started looking at
the different colored pills. Then we smelled them. Finally, we
tasted them. And we came across ones that tasted like licorice. So
we chewed them up. He was smaller than I, so I gave him less than I
took. And it turned out that they were something called Evac-U-Gen,
which was a laxative. And by the time my father came out from his
call, we had thoroughly fouled the car, which taught my father a
great lesson--and us as well.

Sean Collins: What about school?

Richard: At Saint Agnes Parochial School in the mornings, Sister
Edmunda used to have a little toady who would ring a bell. Anybody
who came in after that bell was late and got a demerit. And that was
a chronic problem I had, getting up a little late. So I grew to hate
that bell. One day I left the lock on the school window open. Later
on, I stole back to the school, went in the window, and stole that
bell. The next day there was h ell to pay because somebody had taken
that bell. Sister said it was a sin against the school; it was a sin
against the Sisters, a sin against the faith, a sin against the
Pope. And I knew it was such a terrible sin that there was no way I
could bring the shame on my family to confess to that. So I kept it
locked in my heart over all those years. And, of course, Sisters
came and Sisters went. Popes came and Popes went. And I still had
that sin locked in my heart.

Sean: What did you end up doing with the school bell?

Richard: I still have it. It's by my bedside, and I joyfully ring it
every now and then.

I was just thinking, by the way, of my first-grade teacher, a
saintly nun named Sister Monica. I eventually became her physician.
She was in her eighties, still teaching but running out of gas. And
she would come to my office, and I would give her shots of vitamin
B12 and anything else I could think of, but nothing was working. So
finally I hit upon a solution. I wrote her a prescription for a
"spiritus fermenti," which is Latin for "fermented spirits." And she
would take the prescription down to the drugstore, and the druggist
would pour from the bottle of Schenley's into a medicine bottle. She
would take two tablespoons before breakfast and two before lunch. It
worked like a charm. But if she had ever come on the truth of the
matter, I'm sure she would have excommunicated me from the faith.

Sean: Would you mind telling me a little bit about how you met my
grandmother?

Richard: No, because she's the absolute light of my life. She came
to Avon when I was a sophomore in high school. She was and is a
beautiful redhead, and she just grabbed my heart--although during
high school we didn't get along very well. I went out of my way to
do little things so that she wouldn't forget me. But they were
always the wrong things, and they got me in trouble. I can remember
one time we were in a school play called "Dollars for Doughnuts."
She was the older girl, and I was her bratty brother. And there was
one scene in the play where she was supposed to complain of being
faint, and I was supposed to go up and get a little vase of water
that had some flowers in it and sprinkle it on her. So, before the
play, I thought, "I'm going to look around school and see if I can't
find a big vase." So I found a gigantic vase and put a few pussy
willows in it and filled it up to the brim with water and put it on
the piano. It must have been a gallon and a half of cold water. And
she had a brown taffeta dress on, I remember. And in the middle of
the play she said, "Oh! I feel faint!" So I marched up to the piano,
and I threw out the pussy willows, and I dumped the bucket of water
on her. And she looked at me for about thirty seconds, and then she
brought one right up from the floor, whacked me across the face, and
almost took my head off. I have a condition called dermatographia,
where my skin swells if you scratch it very much, so the whole left
side of my face went up for the rest of the play. And to this day
the people in Avon say they've never seen such acting as took place
on that stage that day.

Sean: So how'd you go from there?

Richard: With patience and persistence and timing. I never dated her
until I graduated from high school. And then it was a long-distance
relationship, because I went off to college and medical school. But
it worked. And she's been the light of my life ever since. A
wonderful woman.

Yeah. I've had a good life. Although there are things that we would
all do differently if we had the chance, I don't think there are any
huge regrets. But I'll have to say that out of all of this I had the
great good fortune of meeting your grandma. That just changed my
whole life. And it's been such a great source of wonder and help to
me. So if I'm going to give you any advice, it's to get yourself a
pretty redhead like your grandma!

September 24, 2005

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